One of the masterpieces of the roots era, no album better defines its time and place than Two Sevens Clash, which encompasses both the religious fervor of its day and the rich sounds of contemporary Jamaica. Avowed Rastafarians, Culture had formed in 1976, and cut two singles before beginning work on their debut album with producers the Mighty Two (aka Joe Gibbs and Errol Thompson). Their second single, „Two Sevens Clash,“ would title the album and provide its focal point.

The song swept across the island like a wildfire, its power fed by the apocalyptic fever that held the island in its clutches throughout late 1976 and into 1977. (Rastafarians believed the apocalypse would begin when the two sevens clashed, with July 7, 1977, when the four sevens clashed, the most fearsome date of concern.)

However, the song itself was fearless, celebrating the impending apocalypse, while simultaneously reminding listeners of a series of prophesies by Marcus Garvey and twinning them to the island’s current state. For those of true faith, the end of the world did not spell doom, but release from the misery of life into the eternal and heavenly arms of Jah.

Thus, Clash is filled with a sense of joy mixed with deep spirituality, and a belief that historical injustice was soon to be righted. The music, provided by the Revolutionaries, perfectly complements the lyrics‘ ultimate optimism, and is quite distinct from most dread albums of the period.

Although definitely rootsy, Culture had a lighter sound than most of their contemporaries. Not for them the radical anger of Black Uhuru, the fire of Burning Spear (although Hill’s singsong delivery was obviously influenced by Winston Rodney), nor even the hymnal devotion of the Abyssinians. In fact, Clash is one of the most eclectic albums of the day, a wondrous blend of styles and sounds.

Often the vocal trio works in a totally different style from the band, as on „Calling Rasta Far I,“ where the close harmonies, dread-based but African-tinged, entwine around a straight reggae backing. Several of the songs are rocksteady-esque with a rootsy rhythm, most notably the infectious „See Them Come“; others are performed in a rockers style, with „I’m Alone in the Wilderness“ an exquisite blend of guitar and vocal harmonies.

One of the best tracks, „Get Ready to Ride the Lion to Zion,“ is a superb hybrid of roots, rocksteady, and burbling electro wizardry; its roaring lion (created who knows how) is a brilliant piece of musical theater.

„Natty Dread Take Over“ twines together roots rhythms, close harmonies, and big-band swing, while even funk and hints of calypso put in appearances elsewhere on the album. Inevitably, the roots genre was defined by its minor-key melodies, filled with a sense of melancholy, and emphasized by most groups‘ lyrics.

But for a brief moment, roots possibilities were endless. Sadly, no other group followed Culture’s lead, and even the trio itself did not take advantage of it, especially after parting ways with Gibbs. When Culture re-emerged in the mid-’80s, they swiftly moved into a reggae lite/world music mode a world apart from where they started. Thus, Clash remains forever in a class all its own.

written by Jo-Ann Green for allmusic (and what an excellent review this is, you feel that all these descriptions come from inside, she doesn’t even need poetry! And, me oh my, this is a fantastic record. Was für Brian Eno Gospel ist, ist für mich Reggae. I surrender. -m.e.)

Leroy Mattis’ first drum was a plastic butter container. ‘My mother wouldn’t buy me a drum because back then the situation in Jamaica was very tense… In 1960 Jamaica was still an English colony, and the drum is a roots instrument.’ Tommy McCook was living two doors down; during the first years of The Skatalites, Mattis would practise there. In 1970 he was National Junior Drumming Champion, with Count Ossie winning overall; four years later his ensemble battled in the Senior finals with the drummers of the Light Of Saba.

„Our group was initially called Genesis, it was a 7-piece drum group, but I changed the name to Mabrak, which means Thunder in Amharic. We knew that we were coming with a heavy sound.“

Experiments in percussion, in the middle of the night at Harry J’s. Funky versions of rhythms like Curly Locks and Too Late To Turn Back Now, led by talking drums. Blaxploitation is in the air… the Staples… even a blast of Barry White. Beautifully mixed by King Tubby, who couldn’t believe his ears.

Originally released in 1976, in paper inners only. Smartly sleeved in quintessential Dug Out style this time around — with an insert, including a recent interview with Mabrak.

Some of you might hear from Mabrak for the first time now. Be careful: once tuned in, it might easily turn into addictive listening. The talking drum as a lead instrument was a kind of „deeply rootded novelty sound“ – the ascetic outfit of the band must have been a dream come true for King Tubby’s mixing desk. Or is this whole story just made up? Fooling you into a short chapter of the long history of great unmade albums?

In terms of smoked-out midnight vibes, Drum Talk is about as close as you’ll come to the deeply cherished reissue of the Dadawah album in Dug Out’s catalogue but, it’s also more danceable, if your body knows enough twists for skanking such minimalism!

Michael: I discovered this album very late. And when it was reissued, I read a lot about this man’s history. He really was a very influential figure in reggae’s history …

Angus Taylor (BBC): Yes. Joe Higgs’ name is inextricably linked to that of Bob Marley. It was Higgs who taught the teenaged Wailers to sing and harmonise at his Trench Town home and was the first in a series of surrogate father figures who helped create and refine the Bob we know today. But Joe was also a respected singer and composer in his own right. He’d been present at key moments in the development of ska (as part of the duo Higgs and Wilson), rocksteady (with Lyn Tait) and reggae (touring and recording with Jimmy Cliff) before releasing Life Of Contradiction in 1975.

Michael: I heared that the European management withdrew the release of the album, it’s far away from being classical, groovy reggae for a mass market …

Angus: It’s an outsider’s album from a complete insider. Recorded three years earlier but held back due to the all-too-familiar rights issues, Contradiction saw him teamed with the formidable and versatile Now Generation band. The result was a highly conceptual, deeply personal record by one of reggae’s true masters that deserves to cross over into popular music’s wider canon. Of the three Wailers, Higgs’ deep, rich voice sounds closest to that of Peter Tosh, but is a more mournful, weary instrument, the sound of one who has suffered great hardships with a shrug and a smile. From the battle-worn but hopeful Come On Home, to the poignant There’s A Reward, through to the clattering hand-drums and sad solo trombone of bonus instru-dub Freedom Journey, each song draws on universal themes of love, redemption and pain, while each note played by the band shadows Joe’s every ambiguous mood.

Michael: The music is low-key in every possible way. Everything is understated here, even the sound and the origin. Joe Higgs really cared for his vision of that music coming from the poorest neighbourhoods, from the ghetto, and without big hymns. It’s music with a „braveheart“ attitude – you really don’t get it in the first place that it’s a real reggae record :)

Angus: The level of songwriting and the breadth of influences on display will impress the casual or non- reggae fan. Glimpses of Dylan and the Band, Simon and Garfunkel, Cat Stevens and Otis Redding bubble to the surface in this melting pot of jazz, country, roots, rock and soul. Unjustly ignored on first release, Life Of Contradiction is a work of astonishing depths and bruised, aching humanity. Give this album some time and you’ll get your just reward.

Across The Red Sea is the work – intentionally or otherwise – of a mystic. It’s only Bim Sherman’s 3rd or 4th LP (it depends how you count these things, and tbh I can’t be bothered with chronology anyway – it’s just as arbitrary a way of ordering things as by weight, dimensions or colour. Fuck chronology. Everyone should organise their record collections by spine colour from red to orange to yellow to green to blue to indigo to violet, then the black and white ones should be used to transmit a message, like this:

of course some spines may be multicoloured, in which case the exercise is void, taxonomy is void, the idea of genre itself a crock.)

If you live on an island, you’re aware of things that mainlanders maybe aren’t quite so aware of. Seagulls are bastards. The lunar pull is stronger when water surrounds you. And the actuating spirit works its way in from the sea: the font of all life, the place where the first strand of mitochondrial DNA – ever – came into being. Can you hear the mermaids singing?

Across The Red Sea – well, let’s not get into music critic mode here. It’s just a beautiful record, one that has fascinated me for a long, long time. The production is lush – detailed, engineered with space in all the right places like a fine Swiss cheese. The mood of the album seems to go between contemplative and quietly devotional. Some of the songs deal with heavy themes but the trick here is to survey a broken fucked up landscape/cityscape but not do an impotent protest singer routine.

Creatively, Across The Red Sea is a triumph. All killer, no filler. Irie.

This album is a stone cold classic of Reggae’s history. Almost everything about it is just right. Dennis Bovell’s band is tight yet melodic throughout. The production is spare, giving the rhythms and vocals space in which to reverb and resonate in a typical pared down late 70s dub-style. Even the artwork, with its monochrome precision and clear allusions to the original ska period, helps capture the mood of a lost time when music really mattered. And, of course, LKJ is simply magnificent. His dub poetry is delivered with swagger, soul and elegance. He is deftly sensitive to, but never dominated by, the pulsating rhythms of his band. His abiding mood is one of cold, considered fury at the injustice he sees around him. His lyrics are rich, impassioned and often elegiac, simultaneously articulating a profound rootedness in „Bass Culture“ (the sub-cultures of reggae, radicalism and poetry) and a pained sense of alienation. It is a testament to his supreme skills that „Street 66“ stills sounds as fresh, radical and dangerous as ever. By the way, he didn’t buy the whole Rastafarian mythology. An independant spirit – and a welcome guest on P.J. Harvey’s disturbing new album.

Being at the Niagara Falls, must be quite an immersive experience. Even with the cultural baggage of movie flashbacks. And the American way of colouring. It’s not so far away from the experience of old, beloved Reggae records: stone-cold classics, full of heat, love, and surrender. Being blown away in front of a famous waterfall, or on a „Jah-Maican“ time travel experience, nevermind!

So every Manafonista might leave his or her marks by adding to this mini-series of „20 reggae underground classics“ (if possible, let us not too often mention the usual suspects) – treasures that should never end in desolate areas of record collections. The first record must be a killer, and it is. For the first time I heard this album at the end of the last century, during a party of Reggae- and Dub-fanatics in Düsseldorf. I’m talking about Dadawah‘s brooding, strung-out masterpiece of nyabinghi (Rastafarian spiritual music), „Peace And Love“! You don’t know it? Do yourself a favour! Originally released in 1974 on „Wild Flower“, it was repressed in ’75 by Trojan with different artwork. The two Reggae afficionados Ainley and Ernestus have had the tracks remastered at Abbey Road for the Dug Out edition, the vinyl housed in “old-school, hand-assembled sleeves” with original cover art restored. I’ll let Honest Jon’s explain the unique appeal of the record:

„Led by Ras Michael over four extended excursions, the music is organic, sublime and expansive, grounation-drums and bass heavy (with no rhythm guitar, rather Willie Lindo brilliantly improvising a kind of dazed, harmolodic blues). Lloyd Charmers and Federal engineer George Raymond stayed up all night after the session, to mix the recording, opening out the enraptured mood into echoing space, adding sparse, startling effects to the keyboards. At no cost to its deep spirituality, this is the closest reggae comes to psychedelia.“